Jonah and the Whale By: Pieter Lastman
This week we have our third sermon in our Culture Encounter Series – Encounter Enemies.
We are blessed to have Rev. Jeff Browning of Resurrection Lutheran in Garden City, NY as our guest preacher. I will post his sermon here in my next post.
But first, a thought on the book of Jonah and the story of Naaman that we covered a couple weeks ago.
In both of these stories the heroic figures are not the people we expect them to be. Naaman NEVER would have gone to see Elijah if it weren’t for his lowly slave girl who told him, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
And even after getting there Naaman NEVER would have gone and done what the prophet commanded unless a loving servant of his reigned in his ego and said – “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?”
In the book of Jonah the heroic figures are those on the boat with the runaway prophet. Even after Jonah says that HE is the cause of the stormy weather that is going to sink the ship, and commands them to throw him overboard, the crew members refuse at first. They want to preserve his life.
I write all this so I can ask you, who are the unsung heroes in your life? Who makes a postive impact on you in ways that maybe THEY don’t even realize. And how can you make them un-unsung heroes by thanking them. A call, a text, a handshake and a few words? Think about it